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I believe you are talking about Warren Buffet. It was he who said that about his secretary. And sure, I know they find every loophole. They buy congressmen to insure they have those loopholes. They move money out of the country and every other scumbag trick they can. Hell, some of the founding members of facebook renounced US citizenship to escape taxes when it went public.

Do I think Trump would close those loopholes? Fucking hell no. Trump worships money and power. He rolls in it like a pig in mud. He has the biggest ego of anyone in the US and that's saying a lot. The ONLY candidate who would close loopholes is Bernie Sanders. Clinton might not make any more but she has her own money chains on her. Republicans, though, are all about helping the rich in every single decision they make. They stacked the supreme court so they could get Citizens United passed for fucks sake. Read Demagogues article. THAT is Trump. Do you trust him not to favor him and his ilk?

On the contrary, it would be a massive benefit to Trump to close those tax loopholes. Many of the interests in the US government that oppose him do so by laundering massive amounts of money through "non-profit" organizations ala Koch and Soros. If he guts those loopholes it makes it exponentially more expensive for them to lobby against him.

Also don't make the mistake of confusing Trump with "Republicans". Traditional Republicans like the Bush crowd and their backers, Rupert Murdoch, and other high powered donors (according to both a congressman that's a family friend and reliable news sources) absolutely despise Trump. I'm also told that there's a very real fear that he might actually prosecute Wall Street executives since(unlike Obama and Bush) he isn't dependent on them for funding.

As far as Bernie...well, I'll just say that I greatly respect his sincerity(which Trump lacks) and his anti war on terror activism. In practice his policies are going to be an even greater disaster than Trump.

One datapoint relevant to the talking points on his website:

Also remember that I used to work for the federal government. I can attest first hand that his solution to problems, just throwing massive amounts of money at the problem, does all of jack shit. The money just dissapears into a black hole and nobody can figure out what happened in every single instance I observe....sometimes to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Let's just use education. Measured over time, the academic achievement of American public school students has a negative R-factor with spending per student.

The thing is that no small part of America and Europe's economic woes are caused by the sovereign debt crisis. Sanders is likely to exacerbate that problem resulting ultimately in large scale civil unrest. Trump's "let's run government more efficiently" platform....leaves an enormous amount to be desired but will take us a lot longer to get there.

In a perfect world. Trump would get elected and last just long enough to make good on his promise to replace all the corrupt and inept bureaucrats with good managers......then be impeached and replaced with a competent, experienced, moderate conservative (like Kasich).

To me it does not matter who wins. We all lose. Trust in yourself and if you believe, your God. Live it, be it, do it. Trump will pass. All of the runners will pass. Some quicker, some slower. It depended on how much fiber is in the diet. Not much else to say. But, being me... It does not matter what I say, anyway. Be thankful and love what you have now. It goes quickly. Even if you are just coasting along... Good things pass. It does not last. Trump? A bump in the rump. Not a hitler (I will not give that guy an upper case). More of a De Gaulle? Oh, whatever... I am happy my Mac is still working under an El Capitan update. Cheers ya'll. Ooooh... That "Cheers" may invite a rebuke from the famous... dare I say the name... no.

Tony - that data point is completely meaningless without context. Classic correlation != causation issue. Showing a very small selection of countries' spending per GDP versus their economic growth is suspect to start with - are these figures representative of all of the entire world's data, or were the countries cherry-picked to show what the author wanted to? If that's the case, I'd be severely worried that there are only 3 which show that lower spending is linked to higher growth (very slightly higher, possibly without significance given the size of the Ireland outlier). Especially given how many other factors influence growth.

You mean Norm from Cheers? Nope, not a mail man, but my uncle was. According to some of my conservative friends, the death of Nancy Reagan is the last sign needed to complete the circle. I try to keep those people at arm's length.

Oh snap. I am losing it... Of course Norm is the fat guy with the mug of beer... Was his wife Vera? I thought we would get to see her in the last show. Didn't happen. My mistake here was thinking of Cliff Claven saying "Norm". On the subject of Norm, no... I am not that guy at all. I'm a bit overweight, but not that fat. Norm was sort of a cool guy though, everyone seemed to like him. I wonder if he would fit into Flaming Moe's? Oh yeah, this was supposed to be about Trump. It is easy to forget about him and go off topic. If he wins, that may not be possible.

And I get the hint... I mean this, sorry for the verbal diarrhea of late. I am just stoked that my tests came back and I do not have cancer. I'm a little manic right now about it. I will give it a rest.

So glad to hear that you're OK. I fully understand the need to manic post, anything for distraction. You may have been going for quantity rather than quality but I'm amused and amusement is greatly appreciated at the moment.

Nope faetal, I did not post it elsewhere. I felt pretty bad about blasting so many silly posts over the past couple weeks that I came clean and said it. Cancer runs in the family. I have a few of the symptoms, but apparently not the disease. It also seems that my BP meds are making be grow a boob. A small one. Not enough to grab or anything, but still a feminine thing for a 52 year old to deal with. It was super fun to fill out the mammogram forms - "Have you started your period? Have you gone into Menopause? Are you pregnant or have you ever been?" The tech and the doctor said that they have been testing more men than women lately. So, I am not alone. I was worried it was liver cancer acting up and causing the gynecomastia. It's not weed... Don't smoke it. Not my soy milk either. The beta blockers are the most likely. So that is most of it on the personal front. TMI? No matter. It felt good to let that out. Now I need to start taking better care of myself. I'd like to stick around a little while longer... Even if Trump wins. The next thing though is paying for the tests. It is going to be $$$. High deductible insurance. I have money to cover it and I am thankful I saved for things like this. Getting a great prognosis is worth the cost. At least that is what I keep telling myself as that Porsche never quite gets into my garage.

Today I read reports of clashes between protestors and Trump supporters in Chicago or somewhere. I noticed a poster being held by someone saying 'blah blah blah, Make America great again'. And I'm reminded that Trump also mathers on about this. What I would like to know is when was America great? Or when was it generally considered to be great. And what made it great?

What's called "American exceptionalism" is an essential part of American politics, so a politician has to say it. Reagan especially proved how successful it was for presidential politics.

Originally, it comes out of the WWII and Cold War experience where, despite the US naturally wanting to be isolationist, it understood that the rest of the world (by which they meant only Europe), needed it to stop the Nazis and Soviets from taking over the world. And it couldn't be done without US help. In the post Cold War period nothing's clear any more, but a competing narrative hasn't replaced it.

In fact though the US is going through an isolationist transition where for the first time in a long time people are more or less ok with Russia occupying random bits of Europe and terrorist regimes most of the Middle East & Americans don't want to touch it. We're actually most interested in shutting our borders completely. There's a very strong nativist/populist wave that's swept over the scene. It's kind of an anti-exceptionalism. What makes America special isn't leading the world any more but having the luxury to completely cut ourselves away from it and focus on hating each other for a change.